gohugoio Hugo up to 0.164.x Build Process hugo.toml permission

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in gohugoio Hugo up to 0.164.x. It has been rated as critical. Affected is an unknown function of the file hugo.toml of the component Build Process. Performing a manipulation results in permission. This vulnerability was named CVE-2026-89259. The attack may be initiated remotely. There is no available exploit. Upgrading the affected component is advised.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in gohugoio Hugo up to 0.164.x. It has been classified as critical. This affects an unknown function of the file hugo.toml of the component Build Process. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a permission vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-275. This is going to have an impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

Hugo is a static site generator. From v0.161.0, Hugo executes Node tools under Node's permission model, but TailwindCSS — included in the default security.exec.allow list — requires a highly permissive configuration (--allow-addons, --allow-child-process, --allow-worker). As a result, the restrictions intended by the fix for GHSA-x597-9fr4-5857 could still be bypassed, allowing a Node tool invoked during a build to read and write files outside the project's working directory. Affected versions are those after v0.43; the issue was fixed in v0.165.0 by removing tailwindcss from the default security.exec.allow list. Users who do not use TailwindCSS, or who only build trusted sites, are not affected. As a workaround, users can define a restrictive security.exec.allow list in hugo.toml.

It is possible to read the advisory at github.com. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2026-89259 since 09/11/2026. The exploitability is told to be easy. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. No form of authentication is needed for exploitation. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit. The attack technique deployed by this issue is T1222 according to MITRE ATT&CK.

Upgrading to version 0.165.0 eliminates this vulnerability.

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Productinfo

Vendor

• gohugoio

Name

• Hugo

Version

• 0.164

Website

• Product: https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/

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